Whitewashing Tollywood

Tollywood stars paychecks and film budgets is not affected by Demonetisation, say insiders

Currently, the whole thing in the film industry is answerable for. Whereas the producers can’t hide film budgets and collections like before, some feel the cost of production might come down with the new demonetisation. Though most filmmakers are intact by it and movies are still being shot without any difficulty.

The only difficult arises when the everyday wages due to the currency crunch, but artists are now waged on a weekly base. “On a bigger scale, the industry’s problem is not money but the frequency of failure. Nearly 90 percent movies don’t do well at the box office,” speaks Burugupalli Sivarama Krishna, president of Telugu Film Producers board. He said that they welcome the resolution of the government, but doing so without giving out other measures was not serving anybody.

On a high paycheck

TollywoodInsiders say that though the cost of production might reduce marginally, the payment of the stars might not come down but might in fact go up more. “Who will lessen their salary? That’s not even a problem in the film industry as expenses are made in cheques,” speaks Burugupalli.

The big ticket

So how does demonitisation disturb high-budget movies, high pays and the black ticketing commercial? “This certainly aids the Tollywood producer as the whole thing including high payments is now answerable. It will make them keep a flap on the expenditures, and cut the cost of production,” says Damodara Prasad, maker and secretary of the Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce, whereas Anil Sunkara, who produced the high budget movie 1 Nenokkadinepreviously,says, “Currently, everybody knows the precise budget of the movie and how much budget he has put on a movie and after it releases, how much has he get or lost on that.”

When inquired about the black tickets — where Tollywood producers or distributors inspire selling them for high rates on the first day — Anil Sunkar feels that that online ticketing is good to evade the ticket black market. “Like the airlines, wherever they hike and lessen the tickets rendering to the demand, the movie tickets too should be retained online to decide if you want to vend them for big rates,” says Anil, who trusts the government should make each theatre’s ticketing online, then it will certainly help in answerability.

“Nowadays, the producer can’t embellish the collections like previously. He should come up with the precise figures of the movie collections otherwise he has to wage for it,” says Damodara.

He also trusts that if stars takes half their payment in cash and get remunerated for the other half as a revenue share, it will assist the producer and the movie.
Yet, Tollywood producer Dil Raju says that we will have to wait and see the marketplace in the impending months. “If the movie collections drop, then there might be a change in the attitude of the big stars and producers,” says Dil Raju.